Coronavirus cases in Andhra Pradesh cross 1000-mark

61 new coronavirus cases reported on Saturday morning took the Andhra Pradesh’s tally to 1016 cases, with 171 recoveries and 31 deaths till now.

Srikakulam, one of the two districts which remained virus free so far has reported three cases, with the person – a Delhi returnee – presumed to have infected three of his family members testing negative.

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According to Dr M Chenchaiah, the district medical and health officer, the three COVID-19 cases are from Seedhi in Pathapatnam area.

“The 28-year-old man working as a clerk in Delhi Metro had returned on March 17 by AP Express - well over a month back. He did not show any symptoms; was home quarantined but was not tested then. However, as he complained of cold and cough a few days ago, a TrueNat kit test was conducted, which showed him as positive.”

“Following this, he and his family members were subjected to RT-PCR tests for confirmation, which revealed his father-in-law, mother-in-law and sister-in-law as positive while the man, his wife and their eight month child tested negative,” Dr Chenchaiah told DH.

“The man would have passed on his infection, while he recovered. We have so far identified 67 people who came in contact with him, for examination. We are treating the village and surrounding areas as a containment zone,” the official said.

Thus, Srikakulam’s neighboring Vizianagaram remains the only district with no cases now, while Kurnool with 275 cases accounts for over a quarter of all cases (1016) in AP.

The state has at present 814 active cases undergoing treatment in the government hospitals, according to COVID-19 command control room data.

Andhra Pradesh, which has become the top state with highest number of tests conducted per million population, has been reporting a spike in case numbers from the last few days. On Friday, health officials announced 62 new cases, on Thursday it was 80 and on Wednesday 56.

Officials attribute the high numbers to the large number of samples they are testing in order to identify the infected early and thus, prevent them from becoming super spreaders.

Till Saturday morning, the total number of samples tested in the state was 61,266, with 8141 tests carried in Visakhapatnam district alone, followed by Guntur (6541).